the manxome foe he sought
by ChangeIsJustifiable
Summary: Decepticon ranks are a glitch. That's fine: so is Descendant ... a silent mechanical ghost of a human who lived a vorn ago. Is he a machine, or a monster - and is there even a difference? Decepticon!Sam. Follows "The frumious Bandersnatch"
1. Lusus Naturae

This is just an exercise for me to work on while my brain ponders "Conceptions of the Self". As such, updates shall be erratic at best, and poor quality at worse.  
A follow up on "The frumious Bandersnatch", so it would behoove you to read that first. I have ... no freaking clue where this is going. 8D  
Enjoy

* * *

**The Manxome Foe He Sought  
By: C**hange**I**s**J**ustifiable

**"**Beware the Jabberwock, my son!  
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!  
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun  
The frumious Bandersnatch!**"**

-- Lewis Carroll, "Jabberwocky"

-+-

001. **  
-- Lusus Naturae --  
**

Descendant was ... singular. The only one of his kind -- pretending to be a robot on the outside, and -- and who knew what was going on inside?

Because he was not like the other mechs (never left this planet) and he was once something else (but not any longer -- or maybe he was, it was hard to tell, sometimes), and he had not _chosen_ to be of their ranks (but he had _been _chosen). So Descendant was a singular being, and everything from his optics that shone the same shade of his world's sun to his name marked him as different (though no one really needed such blatant signifiers, since everyone knew that he was the result of turning a maggot into a machine).

(Everyone knew him -- or knew of him instead and what did it matter.)

He was assigned a berth in the barracks with all of the other (useless cannon fodder) grunts, and he couldn't decide the intent or the reality (if a lamb was being thrown to the wolves or if the weasel had gotten in the chicken pen). It would be hard (hard to sleep, hard to live) to coexist in the middle of so many other living things. He'd never had to share before (not his room, not The Room). Just out of habit, he narrowed his visual field to the mid-wavelengths and took in the sight of dozens of piercing red glows peering out of the shadow-darkness-black at him.

(They were like little blinking glaring red stars in the night sky.) Fascinating.

The thought came to him again, that he wanted to have the Earth Culture again (he wanted to store it in his memories) but when came the realization that the Decepticons had an entire _base_ ... and well, he didn't figure there was probably much of humanity left. He didn't know enough about the planet that birthed him to satisfy, but it was very possible that the aliens that had hooked him (unwillingly) into their grasps had destroyed it all. There would be no new learning ... he would never know for certain if he was remembering correctly (or if it was fractured knowledge broken and distorted by the echoes created by his hollow metal shell and silent screams and pleas for mercy that never formed anywhere but in meat under bone).

Singular. (alone lonely only unusual aberrant abhorrent _freak_.)

He had no use for hatred (no use hating the creators that built him or the creatures who brought him into this mess or his own meat-flesh ancestor who found it in the first place to the leader who thought to fling something sought after out into space) but he had all the time in the world for apathy.

(He hears them running-living-expressing-talking all around him and doesn't care that he himself is silent)

Does it matter that he was metal now? There was no one to blame but himself (for being outstanding enough to gain Megatron's attention).

Descendant was singular, but he always had been (a least a little). (Flesh or metal or choice or fate he was alone only abnormal irregular malformed-inside_-where-no-one-could-see_.)

Everyone knew it.

**_-+-_**

**Lusus naturæ** - n. L., fr. **lusus **sport + **naturae**, gen. of natura nature.  
Sport or freak of nature; a **deformed **or _unnatural_ p**r****o**_d__**u**__c__t__**i**_**o**n.


	2. A Futility of Hatred

-+-

**002. A Futility of Hatred**

He was not a creature of hatred. He had no passion, no great emotion to drive him (just hunger, just habit, just the normal accidental searching for vulnerable _lines_), no fevor or vehemance or venom nor poison. Just _cold_ metal and _simple logic_ and action-reaction. The world was new (in it's way, being seen, no more _pitch blackness_ of The Room), and he observed it and measured each step carefully. (Hours, hours only out of the darkness and into the light and born and new and he was so bored and restless already.)

So there was little surprise that his final thought on Starscream was that he wasted more energy on hatred (ardor passion _zeal_) than Descendant thought was strictly worth it.

Well, he hadn't always been of such an opinion. When he was a meat-thing, he had hated so long as so hard that he'd made himself sick (how pathetic, he thought -- _snikt-snakt_: his claws as he watched the gunmetal gray sharp edges slide against each other like scissor blades). Now it just seemed like such a waste of time. What good was hatred except to burn precious fuel and consume processors and make him unreasonable (and if he was unreasonable, sometimes he got more injured than strictly necessary to feed and it was such a waste)?

Perhaps being second in command gave him access to enough fuel to waste carelessly like that. He certainly hated Descendant, which in and of itself was a waste of time (a waste of feeling, a waste of effort and obsession) since Descendant wasn't _made like him _(_a freak once meat now metal and uncustomary wrong untouchable_). It had been blatantly clear from the first time he'd laid visuals on Starscream. It had been clear before then -- when he was still meat, and clearly being metal alloy made no difference in Starscream's oh-so-esteemed opinion.

(Waste waste waste. Descendant could use that fuel better than that mech could, that was certain. He wouldn't need nearly as much, and that was simple scientific fact.)

Trailing after the (much larger) jet (was he still a jet?), sensor panels twitching and quivering as a dozen programs devoured his lower processors to watch for hostility, Descendant used some memory space to try to decide how he felt about this unwarranted hatred. Oh, yes, back when he was meat, he had seen that Starscream hated ... everything, without reserve, especially Megatron (except when he didn't), it was nothing personal (until it was), and nothing would come of it (unless something did). But how did becoming a bot _vulnerable_ to Starscream's hatred affect Descendant? He'd been sheltered enough during that time, having been a squishy under Megatron's watchful optics.

"... look after the recruit," Starscream grumbled, apparently unaware that Descendant hadn't been made blind and _could_ understand Cybertronian languages. Starscream targeted a door and turned back to him, jerking his helmet toward it. "Get in," he snarled, human language (English) like Descendant was _ignorant_ or unworthy.

Though officially declared a Decepticon, he couldn't help but think that it probably didn't make that much difference to his 'comrades'. That and after being alone but for his food, being in the open and around ... _others_ was a little nerve wracking. It was probably the only reason that the blow didn't catch him completely off guard when he was sidling by Starscream. Still, the wrenching pain of having a sensor panel grasped roughly and _tightly_ was blinding.

They would not have built him swift, with weapons capable of downing larger opponents, if they did not design him _flawed_, with weak points for them alone to exploit.

He'd only said five words since he'd been made of flesh, and survived too much to scream now. Even when Starscream twisted his sensor panel so that it crackled metallically and _popped_!, he didn't utter a noise. But he fought them with every claw and tooth he had. Metal teeth. He bit and tore, going for vital lines like he always did, but he was smaller and they out numbered him. He was wrestled onto a table and they produced something that looked perversely like a welder or glue gun of some sort.

When they began to brand the Decepticon symbol onto him, he quieted down and stopped struggling. That was all? It was acid burning into his alloy, and painful, yes. But he had honestly suffered much worse as fragile meat. The fact that he knew this wouldn't kill him made it more than bearable.

He cocked his head around to flicker his optics at Starscream. Two could play _that_ game, and now Descendant had all the time in the world. _Snikt-snakt_, his claws grated against each other and he promised himself: _soon_.

-+-


	3. Hiding In Wait

-+-

002. --**Hiding In Wait**--

Barricade shot him a contemptuous look (and unnoticed and noiselessly, he steeled himself for an attack that didn't-didn't-didn't come) before glowering with all four optics at Starscream. "I watched that little glitch back when he was flesh bag! I did my time!"

"You're doing _more_ time, you fragging little glitch --"

Forgotten, he stood silent-still (part of The Room _unmovable _cement gray_ conserving energy automatically_). Descendant wasn't feeling terribly impressed by the Decepticon army (and less and less as time went on and his subprograms began to reconnect and restart and restructure his processors so he could remember how to really _think_). How did they even _function_? (Not a military captain, or anything, but the _in fighting_ --) He recalled opposing cliques of thirteen-year-old-_girls_ who would have made a more solidified war force! If Megatron hadn't captured the All Spark ...

Well, no use thinking about _that_, of all things. Megatron had the All Spark, Sam was dead, the Autobots driven underground with what humans remained, and Descendant was a Decepticon recruit. Whatever. He was impatient for Barricade to just get over it so that they could go out and he could find some form to change into. It took a while for all of his processors and programs to line up in a logical way (and he still slipped, on occasion), but he quickly figured out what was wrong with him and why he felt bare. He had no alt-mode, and therefore was not configured with proper armor.

At least they fixed his hip after branding him. He slid the tip of one claw over the stinging burn on his pelvic plate, idly running system checks while Starscream and Barricade _really_ got into it. They hated each other for various reasons that probably happened hundreds of years ago, if not thousands. Descendant didn't particularly care what their history was, but the fact that Starscream actually got Barricade to stop being slippery-purring-drawling amused the hell out of him.

Well, not at the time. At the time, he'd been Sam-made-of-meat and certain that the Autobots would eventually succeed in winning and rescue Sam-Witwicky-their-friend/key, and he was worried that Starscream would work Barricade into a fit that would end with him as a spatter of juices.

Now he was Descendant-made-of-metal, though, and he could _bite-rend-tear-cut-rip_, and it was pretty damn amusing -- well, fascinating. He didn't have much of a sense of humor, as it'd only been a short while since he had left The Room. He knew he would have found it funny, though.

He winced when Barricade grabbed him by a sensor panel and began to manhandle him away. As someone with sensor panels himself, Barricade likely knew exactly where to put pressure to maximize pain. That said, enough pressure was being exerted that he was not yet paralyzed, but he definitely wouldn't argue with whatever Barricade decided to do. He had once been fragile meat in a world of hard and sharp edges, so the pain did not come as a shock. Especially since he had been constructed the way he had. Parts could be replaced, wires reformed. Pain was as inconsequential as the alerts that broke across his processors in illusions of light and sound, indicating strained joints, taunt wires, protesting metal.

"Hurry up, maggot," Barricade rumbled as he released the sensor panel. For such a small bot, he did have a fairly impressive vocalizer.

Descendant trailed along obediently for the moment, still a little accustomed to listening to Barricade's orders. There wasn't much of a difference between the base and the world (dead grey _dead cement _steel _broken _unfriendly _dark_) and he looked around, taking in the Earth as it was -- and realized that more time than he had thought must have passed. The Earth was gray-dead-dying and silent-still-cold, clouds-or-worse covering the sky. It was like every post-apocalyptic movie that he had ever seen ... a mix between "War of the Worlds" and a sudden ghost town. They'd set up in some big city, and even the massive sprawling-tall-monsterous base didn't cover the entire thing. There was property damage, but not everything was destroyed. Some parts were demolished, but not all parts.

Being out in the open made his circuits quiver and his sensor panels stiffen and arch upwards in alert. Anxiety began to build in him from his subprocessors, triggering a whole new set of programs that Descendant had never felt tickle across his processor before. He was -- he was scanning the broken vehicles compulsively, searching for something to use to hide him. He felt -- he felt _vulnerable_.

A little bit of surprise trickled across the meat-self-echo. That these massive mechanical monsters could feel _frightened_, and be driven by the need to be able to hide ...?

"Not these," Barricade said with an unreadable look at him, and Descendant swiftly centered his visuals on his ... mentor? "None of these will work," Barricade added, noting his attention. With a careless swipe of his arm, he knocked one of the crashed cars aside. "You'll need something that can get you across this terrain. How these meatlings could _live_ in such a breakable world ..."

Descendant recentered his processors when Barricade began to mutter to himself. He knew that the ... police car (he had kept that form?) shaped mech was prone to brooding. It had been a surprise that such a violent monster could be so ... introspective. When he was a meat-thing. Now he sort of understood it better, and didn't begrudge the Decepticon his mind games.

It wasn't until he wandered away from Barricade and into the part of the city that had once had military aid that he found a suitable form. It was rather large, but it would give him plenty of armor. His programs informed him that it was on the large side of his capabilities -- anything larger would be impossible to mimic. He grasped the vehicle and turned it off its side and onto its wheels, scanning it. For a long moment, he studied the shape, turning it over in his processors and giving them time to correct the dimensions -- fill out the dents and put glass in where it had been blown out.

Then the data was sliced apart, fed into his transformation algorithms, and he went to pieces. Within three seconds, there were two Nissan Patrols sitting there. Descendant soaked in the feeling of contentment that swept through his processors at finally having a camouflage, and rolled forward.

Yes, the military style Patrol would work well. It had obviously been made for off road driving. Satisfaction actually shook Descendant out of the shape, as his sensor panels -- half of a door, now -- quivered hard enough to break the seamless door frame until the illusion was broken and the entire shell of the vehicle came apart. A part of him found it fascinating that breaking the illusion just by cracking a seamless connection induced reversing form.

Standing, he took in the difference in his form, now. No longer a protoform, sliced together out of spare parts, now he was armored in metal mock-painted with military mottling, giving substance to his form. His claws looked stronger, he looked sharper ... and the black Decepticon icon was stamped like a brand on his hip plate.

Reflexively flashed his claws in front of his face, catching the amber glimmering of his optics, he cocked his head and listened for Barricade and reflecting on the names of the dead.

At least, he finally decided, he was on the winning side.

-+-


	4. A socially acceptable monster

-+-

**004. A Socially Acceptable Monster**

Three days free from The Room, and he had a very astute observation to make. Namely: Decepticon ranks were a glitch.

On one hand, power and ambition were favored -- ruthlessness and competency. And yet, loyalty to the cause (to Megatron) were supposed to be foremost. Say it with Descendant now: _What_? Secondly, Descendant was in the unique position of trying to find his nitch several thousand years after everyone else had. He had to find the perfect balance between earning some respect (to keep from being deactivated) and not getting on Megatron's nerves (tyrant that he was). Having once been meat, respect was something in short supply, and not giving into his reflexes to kill and cannibalize the more annoying ones was hard.

So ... yes, a glitch in every sense of the word.

That wasn't the only difficulty he was running into, though. If that had been his only problem, it wouldn't have been much of a problem at all. However, he had to also become accustomed to consuming fuel through his mouth (intake) from a container ... and that was difficult, _period_. While he had instinctively sucked fuel from lines through his mouth when his processor hadn't been properly working (all these memories lumped in with the meat-memories, as they were incomplete and suffering from bit-rot), he had gotten used to directly feeding lines to his tank. Going through his mouth was just a reminder of what he used to be, and it seemed like a waste to make the fuel travel so far.

Though this was apparently _necessary_, because while he could easily transfer fuel the way he had been, raw fuel had to be processed, and the length from mouth to tank was a processing system. All this meant to him was that there were easier ways to do things that were no longer socially acceptable.

_Not socially acceptable_! Among Decepticons! Now, there were some words he didn't ever think would be strung together ... mostly because he'd never thought about it before. Ah, well.

Descendant cycled air irritably, carrying a tin canisters of fuel as he headed off to start the day with Barricade. He was rather perversely pleased with the glitch being assigned as his mentor. Barricade was probably the one less likely to deactivate him out of irritation, disgust, or just because it sounded like fun. Not because of any misplaced responsibility or fondness, but because Barricade had already tried and nearly shearing off his cannon seemed to be a good way to convince him that it was just easier _not to_.

"Eat anyone last night?" Barricade asked when Descendant entered the area, and maybe he was actually being serious asking that.

"(Oh, _ha-ha_,)" Descendant sent over the radio, vocalizer crackling with static as power ebbed and rushed to his optics, making them dim and brighten in a poor imitation of rolling his eyes. He sloshed the tin at Barricade and refilled the processing well in his chest. The first night he spent in his berth had been after he'd gotten an alt-form, and he had snapped out of recharge, struggling with one of the other grunts. In the darkness, and not having gotten used to being ... outside ... yet, Descendant naturally deactivated the mech and had drained him of fuel before memories came back to him.

When a friend of the mech Descendant ate tried to get him in trouble, Descendant had spoken his second set of words in a storm of crackling static: "Prove it."

With no video, no one else being awake (that had come forward, at least, and they wouldn't if they knew what was good for them), and the entire base having known about Descendant's normal method of feeding within five seconds of his show in the arena (he supposed the ones who fed him hadn't talked), there was no way to prove that Descendant was the one who had done it.

While the Decepticons seemed to approve of that simple logic, he had still ate another mech ... which was so abhorrent to them that he was hardly going to get _congratulations_.

Barricade rumbled wordlessly, measuring up the slightly taller, more slender mechbefore turning away. Descendant had to wonder if Barricade thought he was next on the menu.

He wasn't. Descendant had just forgotten where he was, and had been attacked in the dark while sleeping. He could control himself, so long as his reflexes didn't get the best of him, first. Just ... don't approach him in the dark, or too quickly. He wasn't used to this 'being around others' thing. Still, it would be so much easier if he could just drain fuel from lines. This consuming raw fuel and waiting for his processing well to empty was _tiresome_. It took energy to refine the fuel to power his gears and it was just so much more _energy efficient_ if he got his claws on some that had already been processed.

Another few liters were poured down his throat to the well (and Descendant looked away from the gape in Barricade's armor, flashing temptingly bare fuel lines).

-+-

Descendant did not twitch. Perfectly still, optics _dim-dim-dim_, barely anything running. A state of half-stasis (another loathsome remnant of his organic origins, this state of low-power that was as close as a robot could come to being _catatonic_) he entered willingly, accepting input from his sensors but also not actively analyzing it.

Not all Decepticons were noisy little glitches. One of his creators was not -- Shockwave. Deluge had little interest in him past designing his weapons systems, and Shockwave only wanted to see if it _could be done_. It had been _Shockwave's_ idea to allow him to eat mechs, after he had attacked and savaged the grunt sent in to see if he was still functional -- Shockwave just wanted to see _what he would do_. (Meat memory. They had no reason to believe that the grunt was in any real danger, not with his weapons offline.)

(He had a sort of parents due to his origins, but they were neglectful at best.)

Shockwave finally withdrew his hands from deep within Descendant's innards and closed the access panel. (He was only half Cybertronian, because the other half of his design was drone. A Frankenstein monster in every sense of the word.) Slowly, his optics powered back up a little to a more normal level, at which point Shockwave addressed him. "You will desist in provoking fights with those whom you are uncertain you will win against."

Descendant stirred. Telling him to stop picking fights with Barricade was like telling Barricade to stop lying. It just wasn't going to happen. First, he had to attack Barricade for trying to kill him, this time ... Well, it was personal. Perhaps a part of it was the reminder that he _could_ still kill mechs, or maybe it was because he was taller (by a few bare inches) than Barricade, but he just wasn't going to stand for the lies. Both times he had attacked Barricade, of course, the more experienced mech just beat the slag out of him. It was why he had to return to his creator to get fixed and make certain he wasn't glitching.

Correctly interpreting his silence, Shockwave continued, "It is not logical to fight battles that can not be won. You will desist from instigating fights that are such; it is senseless to suffer damage that is unnecessary."

Finally, Descendant gathered himself to respond: "(I believe that this is a result of my human software programs,)" he sent, and it lacked the inflection that he always lacked. Like Shockwave, and Soundwave, Descendant did not make mood indicating noises. "(Human biological programing is unpredictable.)"

Silence fell between the two mechs as both remained utterly still while processing this. Finally, Shockwave responded. "I can not eliminate your human programing. Megatron has forbidden it. You will learn discipline."

Because that was what Descendant was -- he wasn't supposed to be _one of them_. He was only half an experiment and half a pet with guns. His optics dimmed -- and though not a standard sign of acknowledgement, they both knew that he heard it. Descendant would never be caught off guard, for he never thought very deeply, and his sensors were hypersensitive at all times.

"Go," Shockwave instructed. "My studies indicate that humans find pain effective as a learning devise. If you do not learn discipline, I will hardwire your sensors to a subprogram that will inform your human software that you are in pain. Perhaps then your human software will avoid making you behave irrationally."

Descendant moved off the table, no further information traded. What Shockwave promised was not a cruelty -- the mech would not understand the logic behind it. It was a simple statement of fact, a _remedy_ for the glitch that ailed him. Descendant resigned himself. He would not fight Barricade anymore, unless he was certain that he could win.

There would be no more self defense.

-+-


End file.
